Donna
fussy cut from the same music print fabric used for the backing.

It's
very cute!

Borders are quilted with clef symbols and music notes in black thread. The middle field is basted and Donna will finish the quilting on her home machine. El cuto petuto!

Also finished today is binding added to Beckie's Chevron quilt for Ruthie. The quilt is made with home dec fabric as well as the binding. It made for four layers heavy fabric plus the batting. The stitching went well on my industrial straight stitch. Like butta! That's what it's for!

This pic is Beckie's quilt before trim and binding. No new pix, not much to see as the binding is only sewn on and will be stitched down by hand. Here is my post with more of the Chevron quilt as well as info on using Home Decorating fabric for quilts.

This is a large quilt, made of blocks made by members of Phoebe's family. A few were made by hand, most were machine pieced. Lots of Y seams and bias edges in this one. Very unusual block and some wonderful vintage fabrics. No repros here...

This is one of my favorite fabrics with little Bambies :0) The variety of fabrics were incredible. All of the blocks were assembled and sashed by Phoebe's mother late in her lifetime of sewing. Blocks were made by aunts, cousins and mom, each one of them different. There were several family quilt tops and this is one that Phoebe chose. She is very happy to have this very special quilt quilted.

Close ups of a few of the blocks and fabrics...

Quilted with a feather block design from One Song Needle Arts in a natural cream thread. I received an extra hug from Phoebe for this one! Thank you Phoebe :0)

Layers of Sawtooth Stars. Perfect to use the Star quilting design I recently quilted on two customer quilts. In this case I took that design, cut it apart and made several new ones to fit different spaces depending on their size and shape.

Above is the back of the quilt and the star I designed for the large star and the echo stitching in the star points done in all the stars. Below, the stars in the corners.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Beckie had fun making a Chevron quilt for Ruthie for her MBR. Gray and white to match her bedding. A more contemporary design and fabric. Quilted with a simple design to fill the chevron shape and move across the rows at the same time.

Beckie always uses a wool batting that gives a wonderful loft that worked perfect for this quilt because the gray print fabric is a bit heavier compared to quilt fabric. The same gray fabric is the backing as well. Quilted with a light Ash Gray thread color.

The little keyboard came in handy for this quilt as I used many many push pins to layout this design. Below is the layout on my screen almost ready to stitch out the next section.

Thank you Beckie!

This quilt turned out beautiful, however it may have to be dry cleaned. We tested some of the scraps by washing, drying and/or ironing them. They came out wrinkled and stiff.

Some notes about the use of Home Decorating fabrics in quilts: I purchased a new quilt book yesterday, Adding Layers from Kathy Doughty of Material Obsession. It features a quilt made with home dec fabrics. Additionally, quilt stores are offering these fabrics, they come in 54 to 60 inch widths. Usually flat rolled on a tube, however I found a few that were folded and bolted.

Fabric content varies and are often treated with Scotch Guard or in a few cases, flame retardant chemicals. Designed to be dry cleaned, these fabrics may or may not wash well for quilting. Often they add weight to a quilt. That was the case with Joanne's wedding quilt. She used a beautiful contemporary 60 inch width fabric for the backing and was not happy with how heavy it made the quilt. I had trouble getting the bobbin thread to pull up into the quilt because of the heavy backing fabrics in both Joanne's and Beckie's quilts. Additionally, many longarm quilters will not accept quilts made with home dec fabrics.

Following 30 years in the home dec business as a workroom sub-contracting for decorators I've worked with lots of home dec fabrics and have played with some of it for quilts. Sometimes it works out, sometimes not so much. Gorgeous fabrics! Many quilters use it in art quilts.

Not saying not to use them in a quilt, however, if you do, play with the fabric and see what it does by test washing a piece or consider dry cleaning or not washing that quilt. Just be aware, it's likely not going to be the same as using fabric designed for quilting. Whatever type of quilting you do or like, have fun with it, learn from it and above all, enjoy your creation!

btw, the book by Kathy Doughty I purchased yesterday is wonderful! Out of 15 original quilt projects I would consider making 10 of them. I am cutting out one today and also purchased fabric for another at Honey Run Quilters along with the book. The sample I am working on for Theresa is also in the book.

One last thing... for your own sanity, please cut off those selvages!, especially with home dec fabrics. When making custom drapes, the selvages are always cut off. Selvedges do not play nice and can do horrible things, especially after washing and dry cleaning.

Saturday, July 19, 2014

This is a UFO from (some time ago :) that Kelly finished this year. A bargelloish design and pattern from Dereck Lockwood, known for his bargello patterns. Love it! Gorgeous set on a black background and wonderful bright prints, only a few are batiks. The backing is gorgeous and a perfect choice for this quilt. Well done Kelly!!!

I knew exactly how to quilt this one the moment Kelly showed me her quilt...

A few close ups of the stitching...

done with a Fantastico variegated thread from Superior Thread Co

Love the center and the gold batik fabric

Thank you Kelly

When I delivered Kelly's quilt to her at Honey Run Quilters she had a new one ready for quilting. It's a quilt she made recently in Don Linn's workshop that our guild held earlier this year called Asian Salsa. It's gorgeous too! I want to get started on that one but have it tucked safely away in a box as I have more beauties to frost.

I had a great week, more quilts are finished and will be posted as well. On my frame this morning is a sample quilt for Honey Run Quilters that Theresa made. It's almost finished. HAL behaved himself with only one crash while I was working on Beckie's chevron quilt this week! Made good progress and feel that I will actually have every quilt promised in July completed by the end of the month. It's such a great feeling!

Turn around it still in November as there are quite a few quilts here waiting in boxes. I actually had to get more boxes to safely store them until it's their turn. Next post will be Beckie's quilt. Enjoy your weekend!

PS. apologies for not responding to comments lately. I poked on a button to clear my browsing history, not thinking, also cleared cookies. Couldn't get onto my blogger and pinterest accounts, anyway, took the time to get that all sorted this morning. Up side is that I got allot of quilting done! :0)

Sunday, July 13, 2014

It's gorgeous! Not allot of pictures, only while the quilt was on my frame.

It's big and a bit heavy so I did not take it outside to take pix.

In the second picture the quilt is turned to stitch out the second set of borders and finish outlining the circles. Stitched with black thread on black fabric which is better appreciated in RL, doesn't show up on camera however you can see a little bit of the stitching on the back rolled up on the take up bar. Below is a close up where you can see a little of the feather stitching, the outline stitches around each of the circles and appreciate Joanne's applique with gorgeous hand dyed fabrics. 4 inch perfect round circles... 160 of them to be exact!

Also pictured are my snips and my new wireless keyboard. It's the size of a TV remote! Actually designed for the home theater industry, I ordered a lime green one so I would see it better and not stitch over it :0) I can use it to communicate with HAL, my Auto Pilot software from the area of the quilt that I am working on and not have to walk over to the monitor for each step and function. It's great! Yea! It's those little things, literally in this case!

Wish you could see this quilt to appreciate it better. Joanne and Pam picked it up on Friday afternoon. What you don't see are the borders. We quilted a pattern to match the fabric print in the inner border. I did a custom split design that worked really well and neglected to take pix of the back before it was picked up. It was so hot by 3pm that afternoon, we called it a day!

Had a great weekend. Just posted a top I pieced at Goldie's Scrap Happy Day on my blog Ramblin Rows. Hope you all found a fun way to stay cool this weekend. Groetjes, Jo

Friday, July 11, 2014

Lots of quilts with star blocks were quilted in June. This one is made by Linda D. A new to me customer and clearly not a new quilter. Linda has been quilting for some time, from the Bay area, I believe and now settled in Chico. In fact she lives on a street I used to live on, it's a small world!

Linda made this quilt for a friend. Blocks with sashing and borders and they had a block design picked out specifically for the Sawtooth stars... this one you can see the design in the center...

and this one, below you can see the design in the background of the star block...

You can see the same design I quilted on Betty's quilt here.
Several of the fabrics had paisley prints

so a paisley design was quilted in the border...

The prints are busy and we picked a thread that would blend

so the design is a little hard to see.

Still in RL it added a very nice element to the quilt.

Linda also brought in this small wall hanging made by a friend...

Here it is on my frame,
I started out with some cross hatch in the background of the basket.

Lots of loose thread ends waiting to be buried! When custom quilting thread ends are tied off and I bury the knot and thread tails with a needle into the batting. In some cases, they are knotted, cut and then treated. Depends on the thread and whether the quilt maker plans to enter the quilt to be judged. This one is on my Innova, I do enjoy doing free hand and ruler work on my new longarm! Also love how the quilt maker used a stripe fabric for the weave of the basket and lots of wool applique with a blanket stitch. Very nice!

The wedding quilts for Joanne and Kathy are finished and both were picked up today, pix soon. It was fun to visit with Pam today when she came along with Joanne to pick up her quilt. Have a few more to post from June plus more finished this week! Yea!!! I think I am getting caught up... I think!?! Will see, it is almost the middle of July already! How does that happen?!!!

Weather is still pretty hot here in the North Valley. Last night and this morning we had a sprinkle! Not much, just enough to make it muggy but it did keep the temps down in the day but up at night. Triple digits will be back soon. Stay cool and enjoy your weekend! TGIF